Getting ready - a commission.

Some of my earliest memories of living here in Fremantle include taking our lads as toddlers down to Bather's Beach, a small beach on the edge of Fishing Boat Harbour .  This is a short walk from Arthurs Head, the J Shed where Jenny Dawson, ceramic artist, Photographer Peter Zuvela and Greg James, Scuptor have studios.  Just as close are Freo's Cappucino Strip and the cafe's, bars and businesses in town.  The arrival of Notre Dame University has gentrified the once tatty working class corner of town nearby, given employment to some friends, and educated their offspring.  How would you like to go to a Uni where you can loll on a beach within two minutes of attending a lecture?  There used to be a MacDonalds on the beach too, and many happy hours have been passed and happy meals consumed by WA families here.
Twenty years ago Joan Campbell who is remembered as a 'pioneering potter' of WA had her studio in the old Kerosene Store, right on Bather's Beach facing the Indian Ocean.  Joan instigated the installation of a large wooden jetty formed from the old timbers of Busselton Jetty if I am to understand correctly, as homage to the history of the area and on which people climb, lol, and lie under the glow of the sun or the moon, according to their whim.  Joan screen printed, artwork, text and maps illustrating the place in former times, onto tiles which were installed into a horizontal beam.  As you can see, the tiles have suffered in the two decades, from the very harsh climate or from vandalism.

I have been asked, by Fremantle Council's Public Art Coordinator, to replicate the tiles, as faithfully as I can.  This week, I have done a fair bit of ground work in testing mesh sizes of silkscreens for the job.  The true test will be after lacquering the prints, applying them to test tiles and firing them.  Then I will know which mesh type gives the best print with the china paint.  The green ones here are Riso Screens which use a thermal printer to process, and the pink ones are Stencil Pro which can use sunlight to expose the image onto the mesh.  So there is a bit of local history, culture and some print on clay info to boot for you.  I will post again as the work progresses.  

Perfect pecs er, I mean pics

This is my style, sitting with my laptop and one of my boys, on the couch, watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, while I blog. I know as soon as the childcatcher appears in the movie, Gaelan will disappear and I can switch to VideoHits. My man is sleeping off his flight home from Singapore and the other children are either snoozing or playstationing.

I'm kiln sitting a kilnload of work destined for the Clay Feet exhibition at the Inner City Clayworkers Gallery in Glebe, Sydney next week

I have some of my slab built hanging boxes toasting in there, multifired with various print transfer images and, hopefully the decals I applied in the last few days will be fusing perfectly onto the glaze surface. Most of the decals are those I made last week, screenprinting line drawings with china paint onto decal paper. It is glorious owning a Riso Thermal Printer to make my own Riso screens - no more fretting over the cost of Gocco bulbs. It is great to be able to custom make my own decals but this was a lesson in materials for me. The laquer I used as covercoat on the decals went on perfectly but took so long to dry, I had to take the hairdryer to them, and even then, I felt they could have done with couple of days to cure into a firmer more stable plastic state. I am including a snap of what I think will be the most successful of the lot just before I fired them for the last time.

Quite a few West Australians are heading over to the Sydney Ceramics Trienniale and I am sharing an apartment there with a group of them. Apart from having work in two shows there, I should have time to do some serious catching up and networking and the conference sounds like it will be amazing. I will keep you posted.

And now .... back to the laundry ....